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I Alexander Hamilton | 

I An Appreciation ■ 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



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j Statrtrt at Qlnlumbta | 

I SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 1920 I 



Dr. Thomas E. Green 

Former Chaplain General 

(Srnpral ^nripty, ^nwe of tifp ^ritnlution 

Former President 

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»tiF.NTI,EMKN OF THK bOClKTV : 

1 am thoroughly glad that your distinguished Presi- 
dent should have asked me to speak to you for a 
few moments along lines germane to the hirthday of 
Alexander Hamilton. 

Not merely because as Sons of the Revolution we 
rejoice at all times to honor the memory of the men 
who fought and the minds that wrought for our 
independence and the setting up of a "new order of 
the ages." 

Not merely because among his peers Hamilton 
should have been chosen to fill a unique place and 
perform an extraordinary service. I am especially 
glad, because in preparation for the few words that 
I shall offer I have spent some illuminating hours 
in the far away past and, coming there face to face 
with conditions and problems as they existed, I have 
found fresh ground for a lasting faith and an 
abiding confidence amid the perplexities of today. 

In beginning his remarkable essay upon "History" 
Emerson says : 

"Time dissipates into shining ether the solid 
angularity of facts. No anchor, no fence, no 
cable avails to keep a fact a fact. Who cares 
what the fact was when we have made a con- 
stellation of it to hang in heaven an immortal 
sign." 

It is perhaps a blessing that memory plays nature's 
trick with unsightly ruins and the tumbled debris of 
circumstances. As nature abhors ugliness and 
drapes cliffs and rugged rocks with her festoons 
and garlands of verdure, and covers even the scar 
of a trodden pathway with the tender grass of 
spring, so as the years sweep on men forget the 
ugliness of contention and dispute, the menace of 
misunderstanding and perversion, the nearness of 
failure and the apparent certainty of disaster that 
surround the beginnings of movements and reforms, 
of accomplishments and systems. 

Generations pass along. Out of the "tumult and 
the shouting" there gradually emerges clean cut and 
lucid as the light an Eternal Thing to persist for- 
ever. 

And thinking simply of its perfectness we look 
across the years and picture an Immaculate Concep- 
tion as the source of its perfectness. 

We American people today serene in our con- 
sciousness that our beginning, our endowment, our 
progress, our accomplishment, all bear indelible 
marks, if not of manifest destiny, at least of fitness 
to endure, are apt to forget the storm out of which 
they came. We revere the enduring fact and forget 
the environment of its forging. 
1 



We ^eak of the Declaration, thinking of its 
sonorous sentences and of its picturesque dignity, 
and forget the whirlwind of discussion and dis- 
agreement and charge and counter-charge out of 
which it came. 

We think of the Revolution, and remember its 
great salient high places of accomplishment, and 
forget the poverty, the struggle, the defeat, the 
despair of those long years of almost hopeless and 
yet determined conflict. 

We think of the Constitution of the United States, 
the foundation of our Government, the final source 
of appeal in matters concerning law and order, the 
property and the peace of our people. We esteem 
it "one of the most remarkable documents ever 
penned by man," but we forget that in its creation 
it was alike the cause and the result of fierce con- 
flict, of intense divergence of theory and purpose. 
We forget that the Convention that devised it was 
held behind locked doors, that its members and 
officers were sworn to secrecy lest their dissension 
should tear in pieces the feeble bond that tied 
together the people of the thirteen infant states in 
any sort of concord. 

We forget that at best it was a compromise, apolo- 
gized for by its friends, reprobated by its enemies, 
barely accepted by either and finally adopted by the 
States by majorities so slender as barely to give it 
Hfe. 

We forget that as between the two parties which 
formed lines of cleavage over this same Constitu- 
tion we • barely became the one and missed being 
the other. We barely became a Nation and missed 
being a Confederation. We barely became a Re- 
public and missed being an aggregation of Soviets. 

We became what we are and what, please God, we 
always shall be, and missed being what we might 
have been and what, thank God, we shall never be, 
largely through the ability, the earnestness, the 
loyalty and the trained erudition of Alexander 
Hamilton. 

I presume that wars have always produced similar 
results, in the economic and social existence of 
people. Someone not long ago harked back to the 
days of Caesar, or even as far back as the Punic 
Wars, and found that profiteering and monopoly, 
hoarding and extravagance were as characteristic 
then of the life of people following war, as in this 
latfi- day of ours. 

We do not possibly stop to think that the days 
which gave us "the serene majesty of the Con- 
stitution" were days of such tumult and uncertainty, 



of such disputation and confusion as to justify the 
words of Robert Morris "that the ailairs of America 
were at their darkest." 

Debt so enormous as to invite no possibiHty save 
repudiation ; money so scarce that the continental 
currency issued simply as a promise to pay had de- 
teriorated until in 1781 it had become literally "not 
worth a continental," being valued at the rate of 
GOO to 1 of "solid money." 

Prices as a consequence were almost beyond imagi- 
nation. Mrs. John Adams paid $15 a thousand for 
pins and John Marshall said that his sisters used 
tliorns instead. 

Writing paper was worth $10 a quire. When 
Patrick Henry was asked to dispatch an important 
official communication to Benjamin Franklin at the 
Court of France, he was compelled to write it upon 
the margins of newspaper pages. 

Salt could not be bought at any price ; sugar rose 
to fifteen shillings the pound. 

Prices and standards and values varied in differ- 
ent states and tViere v\as no common force and 
source of authority to adjust differences. A man 
who owed $.") 000 in New York might discharge it 
for $H,000 in Rhode Island. 

Edmond Randolph of Virginia wrote to the gov- 
ernor of Georgia. "Were I to unfold to you the 
scenes of veniality, of dishonesty and fraud which 
I have discovered, the disclosure would astonish 
you." 

President Reed, of the State of Pennsylvania, was 
obliged to deny the rumor that he was "covertly 
trading with New York City, held by the British." 

The French Minister wrote that "Members of 
Congress generally used their positions for specula- 
tion." A sad example for that early day to set to 
the Congressmen of ours. 

And men began to despair of tlie e.xpcriment of 
representative Government in America during this 
critical period. Everything pointed to a fulfillment 
of Lord North's prediction: "That the, rebelling 
colonies would soon be compelled to come, back to 
the protecting arm of the mother country to save 
themselves from destruction by internal jdisputes." 

According to the hastily constructed and impetu- 
cLisly adopted Articles of Confederation, each state 
had control of its own commerce. With :bounda- 
ries largely undecided, and no court possessed of 
jurisdiction to adjudicate such demarkatibn ; with 
thirteen different scales of duty and impost; with 
3 



thirteen fifferent measures of taxation ; with bicker- 
ing among the states speedily destroying what little 
feeling of nationality and willingness for co-opera- 
tion had been engendered by the war, it was cer- 
tainly the low tide of unity. 

When a Convention was finally called at Annapo- 
lis in September, 1786, so few of the States were 
represented as to preclude any concerted action. 

Though waiting for several weeks, only five states 
sent delegates — New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania, Delaware and Virginia. 

Replying to Washington's inquiry, "Why the New 
England States failed to send delegates to Annapo- 
lis," General Knox attributed the neglect of New 
Hampshire "to torpidity," of Rhode Island, "to fac- 
tion and heat about the paper money," and of Con- 
necticut "to jealousy." 

At last, thoroughlj' discouraged, the Convention 
adjourned — after recommending to the legislatures 
represented the calling of another Convention at 
Philadelphia in May, 1787, the delegates to be em- 
powered "to devise such further provisions as shall 
appear to them necessary to render the constitution 
of the Federal Government adequate to the exigen- 
cies of the Union." 

There ensued a winter of uncertainty and of 
grave concern. Men on every side realized that the 
high spiritual impulse of the close of the conflict 
for Independence was being obscured in the sordid 
struggle for material gain; that unity was being 
irremediably lost amid the dissidence and alterca- 
tions of contending policies. 

Washington's was the arm of faith through it all 
that upheld the standard of representative govern- 
ment as the final reward of years of conflict and 
denial. Beside him as advocates of a strong Fed- 
eral Government were Robert Morris, Benjamin 
PVanklin, John Jay, James Madison, John Marshall 
and Alexander Hamilton. 

Among these. Hamilton's service can scarcely be 
estimated. In the face of all the disintegrating ten- 
dencies that both uncertainty and indiflference had 
produced ; when financial and economic ruin seemed 
tc threaten the very existence of the nation, he 
contended steadily and ably for the establishment 
of a strong Central Government; and it was his 
influence more than any other one man's that put 
the nation finally on a firm financial footing, that 
restored the public credit, and inculcated in the 
minds of the people faith in a Federal Government 
instead of a loose and uncertain Confederation. 
4 



Chancellor Kent said of him, "All the documental 
proof and the current observation of the time lead 
us to the conclusion that he passed all his co-tem- 
poraries in his exertion to create, reconstruct, adopt 
and defend the Constitution of the United States." 

There is only one element of order and authority 
in the Constitution which he did not powerfully 
contribute to, introduce and cause to predominate. 

It is impossible that any one character could be 
from all angles equally virile and efficient. It 
needed for the perfection of the American Consti- 
tution that Thomas Jefiferson, Hamilton's greatest 
antagonist along lines of theory and administration, 
should insist upon the introduction into the pre- 
amble of the Constitution of the phrase that saved 
us from drifting toward a limited autocracy. 

That was the phrase that insured for all time 
the fact that the American Republic was a Democ- 
racy, that the Constitution was enacted not by a 
Convention of Colonies, not by an Aggregation of 
States, but that it derived its power and as even- 
tually proved, has maintained its existence from the 
fact that it begins, "We, the people of the United 
States." 

Federalist and anti-Federalist, Republican and 
Democrat each contributed thus to the final achieve- 
ment. And yet when the final vote came upon its 
adoption, a vote which was hastened to prevent the 
disbanding of the Convention, of the seventy-three 
men who had been chosen as delegates from va- 
rious states, eighteen would not attend at all. Of 
those who did attend part of the time, sixteen were 
absent at the time of final vote ; three of those who 
remained refused to sign the document — Elbridge 
Gerry, of Massachusetts ; Edmond Randolph, of 
Virginia, and George Mason, of the same state. Of 
the fifty-five men who attended only thirty-nine 
signed. 

And yet horn thus in the midst of great travail 
that Constitution has stood for a century and a 
quarter of expanding time. 

It was not until a year afterwards that it was 
adopted by a sufficient number of the states to put 
it into operation. And when New York finally came 
to its approval it carried the New York Conven- 
tion by a majority of but three votes. In Rhode 
Island its majority was barely two. 

When it was published, criticism, disapproval and 
ridicule burst about it. It was denominated every- 
thing from a charter of governmental autocracy to 
a weak compromise that amounted to nothing. 
5 



And th# strength of it, gentlemen, lies in that 
very fact ; that it was a compromise, and that being 
a compromise of theory it opened the way for an 
eventual unanimity of support. 

In the closing hours of the Convention Hamilton 
said, "That no man's ideas were more remote from 
this final document than his own were, but he did 
not hesitate between the chance of good coming 
from it and anarchy and convulsion without it." 

Washington, in sending a copy to Lafayette, 
culled it "a child of fortune." .^nd to Patrick 
Henry he wrote that he "wished that it might have 
been diflferent, but sincerely believed it was the best 
that could be obtained at that time." 

But with its adoption things began to clear. 
Tumult and confusion ceased, a President was 
elected. Congress assembled, the states merged their 
interests and shared their responsibilities, the thing 
ot which such evil had been prophesied gave the 
final test of its value ; it worked and it has been 
working ever since. 

It may be of interest to recount that it was this 
compromise between Hamilton and Jefiferson, this 
bargain between the two protagonists, that was 
responsible for the Washington of today. 

Hamilton's first task as Secretary of the Treasury 
was to propose that all the debts of the states and of 
the Confederacy should be assumed and paid by the 
United States. 

In order to get the de!)ts of the states included, 
Hamilton made a bargain with Jefferson that in 
return for his vote and that of Virginia the Na- 
tional Capital should be located eventually on the 
banks of the Potomac, where Virginia had all the 
time contended it ought to be. And for that com- 
promise between New York and Virginia, Hamilton 
and Jefferson bought the votes of the Pennsylvania 
members by the concession that the seat of govern- 
ment should slop ten years in Philadelphia on its 
way south. 

These are interesting rambles and reminiscences 
full of fascination. We are standing today in the 
midst of the perils and the contradictions, the 
problems and the difficulties of our day consequent 
u|.on the ending of the great world war. By virtue 
of the magnitude of the havoc, the task of recon- 
struction and recreation seems stupendous in its 
outline. 

Even we who came into the war last, and who 
providentially suffered least — are face to face with 
anomolies. as bizarre as they are inexplicable. 
6 



N"\'cr such returns from the broad fiokls of 
America — and yet never such prices for food. 

Never such balances of gold and never such a 
price for money. 

Never such wages for lal^or — and never such a 
cry for more. 

Never such a warning against extravagance— and 
never such an orgie of waste. 

Never such need of broad constructive statesman- 
ship, and never such a riot of piiifling, piddling 
partisan politics. 

Never such need of mutuality and never such fogs 
of suspicion. 

Never such need of purposeful activity — and never 
such a welter of discontent. 

We shall come through. 

The foundation of that confidence lies in the 
heredity and the environment of America. 

Hope is the greatest asset in American character. 

Faith is, after all, a greater part of our make-up 
than fecund acres or flaring rolling mills. 

We shall come through. 

But if ever we needed an appeal to the intelligent 
miselfishness that alone can insure self-government, 
it is now. If the things for which America stands 
are to endure, there must be the lasting foundation 
that our fathers laid developed by the united soul of 
a imited people. 

It will not do to trifle with lawlessness. It will 
not do to minimize disloyalty. This Constitution 
still stands because through all its history it has 
found its strength in its stupendous prelude, "We, 
the people." 

Against the mighty authority of that general good 
it will not do to give anarchy and the forces that 
it breeds an inch of leash, an hour of existence. 

Nor can the defiant selfishness born of luxury 
and wanton extravagance venture to justify its 
existence. 

The anarchy of witless wealth is as criminal as 
the maniacal maunderings of a bestial Bolshevikism. 

Do you want a later prophet to read the words 
and the thoughts of Alexander Hamilton into a 
fresh message to the American people? Do you 
want a ringing appeal whose answer shall still the 
forces of disorder and make for quietude and peace? 

7 



Here it is in the words of Abraham Lincoln, 
words that have, alas, been too nearly forgotten by 
the American people, but which should be em- 
blazoned upon the minds and hearts of all in this 
time of unrest, of conflict and of agitation and 
radicalism : 

"Let reverence of the law be breathed by 
every mother to the lisping babe that prattles 
on her lap; let it be taught in schools, semi- 
naries and colleges ; let it be written in primers, 
spelling books and almanacs ; let it be preached 
from the pulpit and proclaimed in legislative 
halls and enforced in courts of justice; let it 
become the political religion of the nation." 

As Sons of the Revolution we cannot do less than 
bind ourselves in a perpetual covenant, that so far 
as in us lies righteousness, justice and civic honor 
shall maintain and defend the American Constitu- 
tion, the safeguard of Freedom — the Magna Charta 
of our Liberties. 



W84 



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